2 de abril de 2008

"So I put on my hat and jumped into the hansom which Jack had left at the door. En passant, you may have noticed that this is the second time I have recorded the fact that I put on my hat. English novelists are very careful about this precaution. He put on his hat and walked out of the room. He wished her goodbye, and, putting on his hat, he went out as he had come in. There is never a word said about the hero’s top-coat or his gloves, no matter how cold the weather may be, but the putting on of the hat is always carefully chronicled. Now, there is a reason for this. It is a well-established principle of English common law that, whenever a public disturbance or street mêlée or other shindy takes place, the representative of order shall single out a suitable scapegoat from among the crowd. In case of a mutiny in the Austrian army, I am told, it is usual to shoot every tenth man who is chosen by lot. But here in merry England the instructions are to look round for a man without a hat. When found, he is marched off to the police station with the approval of all concerned. It is part of our unwritten law. Some few months since the principle was actually applied in a cause célèbre by the magistrate himself. A journalist summoned no less a personage than the Duke of Cambridge for assault. The facts were not denied, and the witnesses were all agreed, when succor came from an unexpected quarter. It is a fact, as I have seen it stated in the papers, asked the worthy stipendiary, is it a fact, I ask, that the plaintiff was without a hat? There was no gainsaying this. The prosecutor was hatless at the time of the alleged assault. That settled the matter; and the Commander-in-chief of the British Army left the court (metaphorically speaking) without a stain on his character."